


New Age Woo

by Mab (Mab_Browne)



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-29 07:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18220376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mab_Browne/pseuds/Mab
Summary: Blair does tend to take over spaces. Jim struggles with this, but not too hard.





	New Age Woo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elaine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elaine/gifts).



Unless Cascade crime was particularly unruly Jim did his best to thoroughly clean his car once a week. Weather and circumstances meant that the exterior was neglected sometimes, but the interior? Attended to without fail. Vacuuming of the floor and seats, lifting of mats, disposal of grit tracked in, glass and chrome polished, plastic surfaces damp dusted, checking under the seats for the occasional errant gum wrapper? All of it was dealt with. That car was _pristine_.

It was something like meditation, not that Jim would ever tell Blair that. But he suspected that it fulfilled some of the same purpose that Blair sought when he crossed his legs and lit his candles. A reset. A chance to process. And speaking of the man himself (and the long hairs that Jim found on the passenger seat every single time) there was this item that Jim had found in the glove compartment.

“Hey,” he said, laying it down on the table, where Blair was adrift in a sea of paper. “You left this in my car.”

He wasn’t sure precisely what it was, aside from a small leather pouch with polished stones inside it. 

“Oh, hey, thanks, but that’s meant to stay in the car.”

“In my car,” Jim stated, with just the subtlest emphasis on the word ‘my’.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Blair said looking up at Jim with a broad and sunny smile.

“Why?”

“Why not?” Blair responded, still sunny. So sunny and innocent, all that sunniness beaming out of those bright blue eyes. A man could get sunburn.

Jim unfurled the parasol of sarcastic scepticism. “Are you committing new age woo in my car, Sandburg?”

The sun dimmed a tad. “Oh come on, Jim. It’s a little bag of crystals. It’s sitting there not doing any harm and maybe actually doing a lot of good. Where’s the problem?”

Jim hated feeling like a heel. Blair was right, what was the problem? But a little voice in the back of his mind was whining like a lonely puppy, “But it’s _my_ car...” Sandburg was insidious, that was the problem in a nutshell. That Jim didn’t really mind, that insidious was a stupid exaggeration, was its own little nutshell nestled within the original.

“So what sort of good is a bag of pebbles supposed to do, anyway?”

“Crystals. Not pebbles. If you’re looking at modern approaches to spirituality then crystals are a focus for positive energy. We can all do with some positive energy.”

“They’d better not drain my battery,” Jim said, in a vain attempt to show that he was above this sort of thing. Whatever ‘this’ was.

“You know what I mean.” Blair was gathering speed, energy, and mild irritation. “You don’t even have to believe in it literally. Crystals can be a symbol, a way to put your head in the right space. When you were a good soldier boy and you saluted the flag, you weren’t saluting the cloth and the stitches. You were thinking about the Republic and Duty, right?”

Jim wasn’t willing to state whether he’d ever considered the flag in the light of the Republic and Duty, because that would lead to discussion about his army days which he tried to avoid discussing with anybody, and especially Blair. “But how could I put my head in the right space if I didn’t know your little bag of magic was there?” he riposted instead.

“I ride in the car right along with you, often as not,” Blair said dryly. “But now that you mention it…” He gestured to Jim to sit down and Jim did. (Of course he did. God damn insidious.)

Blair emptied the bag across his papers and the stones (the crystals) lay scattered there. His index finger pointed to, gently turned, each individual stone. “So you’ve got agate, here; carnelian, aquamarine, celestite, and amethyst and moonstone. They all have their meanings – bravery, calm and quick-thinking, protection for travellers.” He scooped them up in his hands, and said to Jim, “Okay, put your hands out.”

“What?”

With immense (and annoying) patience, Blair repeated himself. “Put your hands out, Jim.”

Jim rolled his eyes, but he put out his cupped hands. He might not know New Age woo but he could figure out what was required, what with symbolism and all.

Blair dropped the stones into Jim’s hands, the edges of his own hands brushing against Jim’s palms. Jim had noted before that Blair had good hands, strong-looking, quick and deft, and there was a little tingle in his skin that was nothing to do with the small weight that now rested in the cup of his hands.

“So how long do I have sit around imbuing these things with my vital forces?” he asked. Blair put the backs of his knuckles against his mouth. The gesture didn’t at all hide his grin.

“It’s more like Mother Earth imbuing you with her vital forces, actually.”

“Either way, I think I’m adequately imbued. Here, Chief.” Jim deposited his handful of Mother Earth back on the table.” 

Blair put the crystals back into their little pouch, and eyed Jim. “No problem with leaving this in your car?” He was poised on the edge of cajoling, Jim recognised the signs, and he sighed. Mightily, to show what a resigned, long-suffering guy he was.

“Do what you have to, Sandburg.” 

Blair smiled with the delighted enthusiasm of unexpectedly easy victory and the little bag was duly left in the car. It was transferred to subsequent vehicles too, despite one sharp argument about just how much of Blair’s need for bravery and calm was due to Jim’s sometimes …direct driving style.

***

Candles didn’t feature a lot in Jim’s day to day life until Blair moved into the loft. There were plain paraffin wax candles in a drawer in the kitchen and in another drawer in his bedroom with a box of matches each to accompany them, against any power outages that might outlast a flashlight battery. Candles had flickered sometimes on the tables when he went out to restaurants with Carolyn and other occasional dates before and after her. In his own home? Electricity worked just fine, or else there was the fireplace.

But Blair liked candles, and their scent hung on in the air in the loft. Their flames shone gentle and steady, there when Blair needed calm or comfort. They were brought out (or carried away to strange bedrooms) when Blair was trying to romance young women. 

Given those associations, maybe Jim’s heart should have sunk when he walked in the door to find Blair sitting in his half-lotus on the floor, his skin and hair caught in a warm glow from the candles on the coffee table.

“So what do you need to cleanse from the system tonight? And is there any dinner in here?” It had been a long day, and Jim wanted to think about food rather than overly attractive friends sitting on his rug.

Dinner was indeed in the refrigerator. Chilli, even, the good one that Blair wouldn’t tell him what the meat was (Jim would figure it out some day) and a green salad, and there was good crusty bread on the counter and a softened pat of butter.

“I’m not cleansing,” Blair said sweetly. “I’m just relaxing. Getting the scent of chilli out of my nostrils.” He smiled over his shoulder at Jim discovering the culinary delights. “That shop down in the basement of the Granvale Center was selling off beeswax candles, and I’m enjoying my sale goodies.”

That made Jim aware of the soft honey scent on the air, lost to his single-minded search for food when he walked in the door. He sat down and ate his meal. Blair abandoned the meditative pose but left the candles burning as he slung himself onto the couch and simply sat there, as relaxed as he’d claimed.

Meal eaten and very much enjoyed, Jim sat down at the other end of the couch and contemplated his evening. “Is the tv going to disrupt your mood? Because I could do with some sports at the end of the day.”

Blair wasn’t fooled by the ‘request’ but he just smiled.

“You want your gladiatorial contests, man, just press your remote button.”

He was curled into the corner of the couch, unselfconsciously calm and sensuous, a man luxuriating in the pleasures of a good meal eaten, soft light, pleasant scents, and a cosy nest. The main lights were low, and the candles cast a glow over the space and the affectionate tease on Blair’s face; unexpected feeling ambushed Jim, a want that he’d already tried to ignore this evening because surely their lives were complicated enough. His face grew hot anyway.

They were looking straight at each other, and of course Blair noticed. Jim could do a poker face (unlike some people) but the unease that had flushed his face had clearly been reflected in his expression.

“What’s wrong?” Blair asked.

Jim’s answer was to get off the couch and blow the candles out. “Nothing. The flames will reflect in the tv screen, that’s all,” he said.

“Oh, of course. Come on, something is bothering you, and I know it’s not the chilli.”

Jim stood and brightened the lights. “Nothing is bothering me. I just don’t want to watch tv in a hippies’ date night atmosphere!” He spoke mutinously into a shocked, uncomfortable silence, “You asked, I told you.” 

“Yeah, you told me all right,” Blair said, all that calm and sensuality snuffed like the flames. He hastily gathered up his candles and returned them, and himself, to his bedroom. The door shut, and remained shut. 

Jim ignored this development, despite the discomfort in his gut that he knew was also very much not the chilli. He sat down on his couch and picked up the remote. Talking about tv had started this, and Jim would damn well ignore the lingering beeswax scent around him and watch the tv if it killed him. The scent died down, along with Jim’s sense of grievance, and he was left with embarrassment that couldn’t be washed away in electrical colour and chatter.

It was getting late anyway. He turned everything off and stopped outside Blair’s door. Blair’s light was still on, gently glimmering through the weave and gaps of the curtains.

“Good night, Sandburg,” Jim said. “Sorry about being a grump. About the candles. And I didn’t say thanks for dinner.”

Just slightly too long a pause, before Blair said from behind his door, “Sure, Jim. No problem. Good night.”

The next morning everything was fine. They both got through their morning routines just the same as ever, had lunch together, just the same as ever, but Jim noted that over the next few days there seemed to be a lot of meditating going on, with the cheaper paraffin candles, and in Blair’s little bedroom rather than out in the shared space of the living area.

Even Jim could recognise an inevitable discussion bearing down on him. (His car was ascending into shiny new reaches of pristine. He could hardly bear to get in every day and dirty it.)

Inevitability struck one late day –off afternoon. Jim slumped on the couch, listening to music, and then he became aware of something somehow… off. The music? No. The light? No. The scent of the air, and the sense of movement, vibrations in the air and through his feet? And then Blair was sitting on the arm of the couch, looking apologetic and a little anxious.

“So, I wanted to clear the air, because I’ve been worried…”

“Yeah?” Jim said quietly. Oh for a chance to turn back time and control betraying tempers, but that was gone and now Jim was just going to have to deal.

“I know that I can kind of take over sometimes. Space, I mean. And it wouldn’t be the first time that you’ve, um, commented on that, but this time there was an edge. Like you felt… threatened. And I was trying to figure out if you were threatened because of something that you really don’t want, or if you felt threatened because of something that you felt that you shouldn’t want. If you see the difference,” he finished in a rush.

“Yeah, I can see the difference,” Jim said. He took a breath. “You and I, we get complicated sometimes.” Blair wasn’t that far away across the couch, and Jim looped his nearest hand loosely around Blair’s calf. A soft gasp came from Blair, company to the nervous skip in Jim’s chest. Jim leaned his heavy head against the couch back and dared to look Blair in the face. “I guess I was, what do you call it, projecting. When I got pissed off with you.”

“Yeah,” Blair said, unaccustomedly cautious. “I thought you might have been.”

“You’ve gotta admit, Chief. It _is_ complicated.”

Blair slid down the couch into a cramped but somehow fluid tailor sit. His sock-clad feet and shins had ended up jammed against Jim’s thighs, Jim’s hand now rested on the crook of one knee, and the heat and scent of him was all-embracing.

“Well,” Blair said, “we can work with complicated, man. Don’t you think?”

Jim guessed that maybe he did.

***

Time passed, enough time that Blair being upstairs wasn’t a novelty anymore. Tonight, Jim lay hazily relaxed but not actually sleepy enough to be annoyed when Blair got out of bed. “Sorry, man, bathroom,” he said, and went downstairs and eventually came back up again.

“That’s my shirt,” Jim said.

“It’s getting cool,” Blair said. “Besides, it was just lying on the floor, there, being untidy. I know how you hate untidy.”

“I was distracted,” Jim said, but without rancour. It had been a pleasurable distraction after all. “But if you’re feeling tidy….” His gaze fell on Blair’s jeans, and sneakers, strewn around. Never let it be said that Blair couldn’t take a hint. He bent to pick up the clothes, Jim’s shirt his only cover, and not much of one. The open tails fell across Blair’s thighs but left his ass and the strong calves very open to view. He stood, and crossed the floor to put the sneakers aside, portions of him hidden and revealed as he moved.

There was a soft clatter on the floor – something had fallen from the jeans pockets. Blair bent, the cloth taut against his shoulders, his lower body brazenly on display and scooped the items into his hands. Jim could see a flash of red and pink.

“More crystals?” he enquired.

Blair looked up, a slightly abashed look on his face. “Yeah.”

“So let’s see them. What are these ones supposed to attract? Inexhaustible sexual energy?”

Blair stood by the edge of the bed, a smirk curving the full lips. His hand offered the crystals in question, and Jim’s education had been extended enough to recognise carnelian and maybe some sort of quartz. “Among other things.”

“Oh?” Jim asked. 

“I was keeping them in my pockets, one for each side, while we were… working things out. Sex, sure. Love, affection, all that good stuff.”

“What, you don’t think we were up to the task unaided?”

“Come on, Jim. It’s not like –“ Blair realised he’d been played. “You bastard.” It might as well as been ‘you sweetheart’. “Very funny.” Blair cast his eyes around the bedroom. “I was thinking that it’d be more appropriate to have these in the bedroom now – shared space, you know? I’d put them under the pillows, but they’d get dislodged or lost.” His blue eyes were very direct to Jim’s face now, and then very direct to Jim’s everything else.

“Yeah, probably.”

“On the dresser maybe.” Blair turned, the shirt hem fluttering around his thighs, just revealing the bottom crease of his buttocks. Jim let his gaze be direct, too. 

Blair fussed with several arrangements of his baubles. Together, separate, at the edges of the dresser, at the centre.

“You like me in just your shirt, don’t you?” he said, back still turned from Jim, intent on finding the exact right spot for his crystals.

“It satisfies my primitive territorial urges,” Jim said, not quite convincingly dry. “And the general effect is…” He made a show of consideration. “Hot. Yeah, I think that’s the word.”

Blair turned, the smile bright with affection and pleasure. 

“Are you finished new ageing up the dresser?”

“Do I detect a tone of sarcasm? Yeah, I think so. And too bad; you’re just going to have to embrace the new age.”

“If I must,” Jim said, but he put out an inviting arm.

Blair accepted the invitation and bounced over the mattress to lie himself down next to Jim. 

Embracing the new age looked better every day.


End file.
